Pokémon Mystery Dungeon 2 Composer Credits   

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Darkness, and Sky gained a fanatical following ever since their release in 2008, dwarfing that of any other Pokémon spinoff and even the rest of the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series. One of the main reasons suspected for this is the soundtrack, filled to the brim with imposing melodies, keen attention to detail, unique sound design, and the trademarks of three truly incredible composers. resulting in a lasting impression on many players after hearing them throughout the long journey the game presents, some likely to play on loop for hours at a time. However, naming the person behind someone's favorite tune is not often possible, as the game credited five composers but never said who wrote which piece.

Arata Iiyoshi worked with Atsuhiro Izhizuna on the music for the prequel duology. This has led many fans to contact him via email and social media about what equipment he used and whether or not there would ever be an official soundtrack release. As of May 1, 2019 and many years of ambiguous communication with Spike Chunsoft, he confirmed that due to license agreements he would be unable to release any of it. While he disappeared from the video game music industry due to financial concerns, Hideki Sakamoto and Keisuke Ito went on to make quite the names for themselves. Ito in this particular case is notable for being the frontrunner for later Pokémon Mystery Dungeon soundtracks.

Considering just how beautiful this stuff is and that there's some information out there, let's try to eliminate some of the ambiguity behind its background!

What is known:

How to read the following list:

The Tracklist

* An arrangement of a Rescue Team track with nothing changed besides sound samples or key. In all likelihood, composed by Iiyoshi, especially considering he's in the credits while Ishizuna isn't.

** A heavy arrangement of a Rescue Team track.

*** This track is an arrangement or was later arranged within the series. If it has a composer guess, it's heavily based on this.

**** Contains the "Time Gear" leitmotif or the "Dialga" leitmotif

% Contains the "crisis" motif

Personal Thoughts

Don't take this too seriously! I suspect this is mainly advice from me to myself, as I'm the one who bothered to compile this list and try so hard to distinguish the composers' styles both as a learning exercise and an undertaking related to a strong personal interest. While an extremely meticulous approach was employed to labeling these, marking even those that were just about 100% confirmed in italics, my guesses could be wrong. The composers' own words could be wrong, considering this entire project was just one more contract job for them! You could go infinitely down the subjectivity rabbit hole, but these musical pieces will still remain the same, and do whatever they may do for you. It bugs the hell out of me to have this mix-and-match with some confirmed composer credits and reason enough to speculate about the rest, and the existence of this in my realm of focus would have to be some sort of message from me to myself as well.

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